I'm back

I feel compelled to start my newsletter again, although I am not sure what form it will take

It has been a year.

As many of you know, I stopped writing this Substack while I was at CBC KW because this newsletter, however innocent, violated CBC’s social media policy.

Of course, as a temporary employee, I wasn’t even aware of this. Things fell apart after right-wing Honest Reporting wrote a hit piece about me with a headline along the lines of “this CBC reporter says her competitor’s newsroom is too white.” It didn’t matter to the “reporters” at Honest Reporting that this “competitor” was my longtime former employer or that the newsroom was, in fact, too white. The article caught the attention of higher-ups at CBC, and those details didn’t matter to them either.

Photo by Dr.Sourabh Panari on Unsplash

Long story short, I agreed to stop writing while still employed at CBC, I finished my scheduled shifts and I parted ways with the organization. Our uncoupling was amicable. I was clear that I did not want to compromise my personal ethics for a job again. I did not want to put aside my convictions to protect a media corporation's image. My manager understood this, for which I will forever be grateful. Maybe if I had found myself at CBC at an earlier point in my career, things would have been different. It was a great place to work, my colleagues were wonderful and my boss was one of the best I’ve ever had.

After leaving CBC I lost the drive to keep writing this newsletter. Summer arrived, and I was busy with my kids, so I briefly forgot about this personal project.

Since I last wrote a post here, hundreds of journalists have lost jobs across the country. Media in Canada is crumbling. The gaps in local reporting are even wider than ever before, and we find ourselves relying on social media for news because we can hear stories from the horse’s mouth, unadulterated and free of hidden agendas.

I don’t know why I suddenly feel compelled to start writing again. Maybe it’s this new media landscape we find ourselves in.

Either way, stay tuned.